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DFI LANParty UT NF680i LT SLI-T2R - Mini-Review

After I saw the small booth of DFI in Cebit I have serious doubts that DFI can even produce and market this board to attend enthusiasts demand.

But now the wait is over, and the 680i mobo from DFI finally arrived at the shelfs.

As some of you may know, I’m long time DFI Lanparty fan, I use a socket 939 DFI Lanparty to break the AMD 4Ghz barrier with my friend Ricky.

I still have a few 939's DFI Lanparty fully operational here, waiting that have time to mount it with PC’s to offer my nephews.

Lanparty DFI motherboards differentiate from others by the following:
- 1st - they are aimed for enthusiasts
- 2nd - good layout and design (although I’m not a big fan of neons)
- 3rd . for me the most important thing is the BIOS – very complete, with a lot of options that are not generally available in other motherboard (tweaking is one of my favourite games)
- 4 - they are not for newbies – particulary this one with his “suicide” range of voltages and very obscure options very "experts" oriented

Based on the Nvidia 680i chipset they are not a motherboard for high FSB maniacs (600 or more) but I already see very good results here, special from our friend VitorWang that run a dual prime in a Core2D (E6700) at 533 de FSB which is remarkable for a 680i – see http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=144585

So my question: is this the best 680i on the market?

I will try to answer that question.

1st advice: be very careful on mounting the northbridge cooler – DFI put a large sticker say something like this “if you broke it with bad mounting, warranty may not cover the damages caused on the motherboard” – I doubt it is completely legal for a consumer product, but the board came from China: the future leaders of world (sorry US citzens) so who cares about consumer protection laws ..this is a board for experts, if you dont know how to mount a fragile NB cooler better buy an Apple

In the 1st part of this mini-review I used my m QX6700 – Quad Core – because of the following reasons:
1st. – I’m chasing the best mobo for Quad Core im SLI in my twin 8800 Ultras - hello, hello 3Dmark2006 Game
2nd – In July Q6600 will drop price a lot and gonna be “mainstream”;
3rd – Overclocking a Quad Core is always more challenging, and I like chanllages..

As you can see mounting a TuniqTower it is not an easy task, and due to its large size may difficult the air flow on the NB cooler and on the voltage regulators (on the front of the CPU on this photo).

I’m sure VictorWang does not oppose if I reproduce here this very well explained screen - very nice work Victor

Before some results, where are the chipset information detailed on Everest

Did you like this 3-3-3-3 1T – I like it, a lot .. seems DDR1 but is DDR2

In this aspect (low latencies) I have a feeling that this mobo may crush the competition, so it may very soon to my mini-cascade to play my favourite Game (3DMark2001 of course) that loves 1T and low latency

And now the usual 4 simultaneous SuperPIs

With just 1.45v on core and silent air cooling i tis not to bad

Sorry about the size of the screen, but I want to demonstrate that the CPU Temps read on SmartGuardinan are to high compared Everest and CoreTemp.

I really don’t care which temps are more accurate, as long the rig is fully stable.

And now the very demanding CineBench with a very nice score for that low speed : 11 seconds.

And finally my favorite game, althought with a single stock card and a freshly instaled HD with no special tweaks

In the next days I will show you some DualCore results and more considerations on this very nice mobo.

I will also put this one the mini-cascade, to play my favourite game at decent CPU speed (near 5Ghz with a X6800)

This is mobo will go definitively in my collection. Less 250€ in my bank account, a bit expensive but there are other sports more expensive and more prejudicial to my healt (cars and nightlife with a lot of alcohol for example).

I hope you enjoy reading this 1st part of the mini-review, I really enjoy and have fun in these first 2 hours of testing the board.

And, in the end, that’s the most important part of it (much more than scores) have fun and not stress too much.

OK, here starts the 2nd part of this mini-review, dedicated for Core2Duo results

First the usual photo of the setup

If you look close, I put a small 40mm fan pointed to the Digital PWR.

I strongly recomend you do this for serious OC, specially with Quad Cores that really put that are quite hot (not so hot as the P35 mobos), but anyway quite hot. Having active cooling on that area may be the key for more stability with overclock systems.

The motherboard boot very easy at 500FSB with the X6800, but for now I will concentrate with results with memory at 1:1 3-3-3...1T, because is usualy the best for my favorite game

And here are some results with X6800 air cooled (Tuniq of course):

I must say that I'm really impressed with the bandwith / perfomace of the memory at 3-3-3..1T, but at suchh low speed: 420Mhz

"
nice review btw but sorry 1 gig of ram is not mainstream,2 gigs is........1 gig is good for showing quick benches but try to run a nice 2 gig kit.

CPU-z error .. all test with 2x1GB Corsair 6400C3

Plese don't start a discussion on stability, anyone is free to have their opinions ..besides this is for benching, for 24/7 I use noiseless system with very low OC (E6700 at only 3.4 with 1.35v) is more than enought for me.